(March 21, 2024, 1:09 PM EDT) -- WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States on March 20 faced questions from the U.S. Supreme Court on why the court should grant an exception to a special master’s recommendation to adopt a consent decree settling a dispute among Texas, New Mexico and Colorado over allocation of water from the Rio Grande Project, asking whether it is a question of original jurisdiction for the court, whether the exception aligns with the United States being allowed by the court to intervene in the case of original jurisdiction and, as Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. put it, “who in concrete terms is being hurt by this agreement?”...